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The Olympic Games should go on as planned, the World Health Organization said Tuesday, and athletes and spectators, except for pregnant women, should not hesitate to attend so long as they take precautions against infection with the Zika virus. Pregnant women were advised not to go to Brazil for the event or the Paralympics. The W.H.O. previously told them to avoid any area where Zika is circulating. Some attendees may contract the mosquito-borne infection and even bring it back home, but the risk in August — midwinter in Rio de Janeiro — is relatively low, W.H.O. officials said. (McNeil and Tavernise, 6/14)

The WHO’s emergency committee on Zika said that while mass gatherings can pose a risk to attendees and amplify the spread of infectious diseases, it had found a “very low risk” of further international spread of the virus from the Olympics, which open Aug. 5 and are expected to attract up to 500,000 tourists and more than 10,000 athletes. Brazil is hosting the Games during its winter, when the concentration of mosquitoes that spread Zika and other viruses is low, the panel noted. The country is also intensifying its efforts to control mosquitoes around cities and event venues, the panel said. (McKay, Connors and Futterman, 6/14)

The latest meeting was touched off by a letter drafted by Amir Attaran, a professor of law and medicine at the University of Ottawa, and signed by a group of more than 200 bioethicists, lawyers and health experts urging the WHO to move or postpone the Rio Games because of the risk that they could amplify the spread of Zika. Attaran had been invited to take part in WHO's Emergency Committee meeting, but he declined to sign WHO's required confidentiality agreement, and was not permitted to take part. (Nebehay and Steenhuysen, 6/15)

If and when a mosquito infects a person in the continental United States or Hawaii with the Zika virus, US health officials will deploy a strike team to further limit the virus’s spread, with the ultimate goal of protecting pregnant women. The rapid-response teams — which will help local officials with surveillance, mosquito control, and lab testing — were highlighted in a draft plan released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Joseph, 6/14)

Lawmakers say Washington is dithering while a dangerous epidemic threatens American shores. They suggest darkly that the government is playing down the risk to avoid panic. They warn: Don’t wait for it to arrive at the airports and establish a perilous foothold. Fear of the Zika virus today? No, those were Republicans in 2014 as they hammered the Obama administration in the final weeks of the midterm campaign for failing to react quickly and decisively enough to the possible spread of the Ebola virus, which never really became a domestic threat. The politically heated attacks cooled quickly after the election, but the message was credited with helping Republicans sow unease about the administration as they chalked up big wins in Congress. (Hulse, 6/14)